SubjectStrategic Management

Assignment No.02

DisciplineM.B.A. (Executive)

TermIII

Submitted BySamiullah Khan

Examination Roll No.056

Q.1: Explain with historical background Organization development?

Organization development(OD) is a deliberately planned, organization-wide effort to increase an organization's effectiveness and/or efficiency and/or to enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals. OD theorists and practitioners define it in various ways. Its multiplicity of definition reflects the complexity of the discipline and is responsible for its lack of understanding. For example, Vasudevan has referred to OD being about promoting organizational readiness to meet change,[citation needed]and it has been said that OD is a systemic learning and development strategy intended to change the basics of beliefs, attitudes and relevance of values, and structure of the current organization to better absorb disruptive technologies, shrinking or exploding market opportunities and ensuing challenges and chaos. It is worth understanding what OD is not. It is not training,personal development, team development orteam building,human resource development(HRD),learning and development(L&D) or a part ofHRalthough it is often mistakenly understood as some or all of these. OD interventions are about change so involve people - but OD also develops processes, systems and structures. The primary purpose of OD is to develop the organization, not to train or develop the staff.

It is an ongoing, systematic process of implementing effective organizational change. OD is known as both a field of science focused on understanding and managing organizational change and as a field of scientific study and inquiry. It is interdisciplinary in nature and draws onsociology,psychology, particularlyindustrial and organizational psychology, and theories ofmotivation, learning, andpersonality. Although behavioral science has provided the basic foundation for the study and practice of OD, new and emerging fields of study have made their presence felt. Experts in systems thinking and organizational learning, structure of intuition in decision making, and coaching (to name a few) whose perspective is not steeped in just behavioral sciences, but a much more multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approach, have emerged as OD catalysts or tools.Organization development is a growing field that is responsive to many new approaches.Historical Background It widely recognized as the founding father of OD, although he died before the concept became current in the mid-1950s.[1]From Lewin came the ideas ofgroup dynamicsandaction researchwhich underpin the basic OD process as well as providing its collaborative consultant/client ethos. Institutionally, Lewin founded the "Research Center for Group Dynamics" (RCGD) atMIT, which moved to Michigan after his death. RCGD colleagues were among those who founded theNational Training Laboratories(NTL), from which theT-groupsand group-based OD emerged. Kurt Lewinplayed a key role in the evolution of organization development as it is known today. As early asWorld War II, Lewin experimented with a collaborative change process (involving himself as consultant and a client group) based on a three-step process of planning, taking action, and measuring results. This was the forerunner of action research, an important element of OD, which will be discussed later. Lewin then participated in the beginnings of laboratory training, orT-groups, and, after his death in 1947, his close associates helped to develop survey-research methods at theUniversity of Michigan. These procedures became important parts of OD as developments in this field continued at theNational Training Laboratoriesand in growing numbers of universities and private consulting firms across the country. Two of the leading universities offering doctoral level[2]degrees in OD are Benedictine University and the Fielding Graduate University. Douglas McGregor and Richard Beckhard while "consulting together at General Mills in the 1950s, the two coined the termorganization development(OD) to describe an innovative bottoms-up change effort that fit no traditional consulting categories". The failure of off-site laboratory training to live up to its early promise was one of the important forces stimulating the development of OD. Laboratory training is learning from a person's "here and now" experience as a member of an ongoing training group. Such groups usually meet without a specific agenda. Their purpose is for the members to learn about themselves from their spontaneous "here and now" responses to an ambiguous hypothetical situation. Problems ofleadership, structure, status,communication, and self-serving behavior typically arise in such a group. The members have an opportunity to learn something about themselves and to practice such skills as listening, observing others, and functioning as effective group members. As formerly practiced (and occasionally still practiced for special purposes), laboratory training was conducted in "stranger groups," or groups composed of individuals from different organizations, situations, and backgrounds. A major difficulty developed, however, in transferring knowledge gained from these "stranger labs" to the actual situation "back home". This required a transfer between two different cultures, the relatively safe and protected environment of the T-group (or training group) and the give-and-take of the organizational environment with its traditional values. This led the early pioneers in this type of learning to begin to apply it to "family groups" that is, groups located within an organization. From this shift in the locale of the training site and the realization that culture was an important factor in influencing group members (along with some other developments in the behavioral sciences) emerged the concept of organization development. Core Values Underlying Organization Development arehumanisticvalues. Margulies and Raia (1972) articulated the humanistic values of OD as follows: 1. Providing opportunities for people to function as human beings rather than as resources in the productive process. 2. Providing opportunities for each organization member, as well as for the organization itself, to develop to their full potential. 3. Seeking to increase the effectiveness of the organization in terms of all of its goals. 4. Attempting to create an environment in which it is possible to find exciting and challenging work. 5. Providing opportunities for people in organizations to influence the way in which they relate to work, the organization, and the environment. 6. Treating each human being as a person with a complex set of needs, all of which are important to their work and their life.

Objectives of OD The objectives of OD are:1. To increase the level of inter-personal trust among employees.2. To increase employees' level of satisfaction and commitment.3. To confront problems instead of neglecting them.4. To effectively manage conflict.5. To increase cooperation and collaboration among the employees.6. To increase the organization's problem solving.7. To put in place processes that will help improve the ongoing operation of the organization on a continuous basis.As objectives of organizational development are framed keeping in view specific situations, they vary from one situation to another. In other words, these programs are tailored to meet the requirements of a particular situation. But broadly speaking, all organizational development programs try to achieve the following objectives:1. Making individuals in the organization aware of the vision of the organization. Organizational development helps in making employees align with the vision of the organization.2. Encouraging employees to solve problems instead of avoiding them.3. Strengthening inter-personnel trust, cooperation, and communication for the successful achievement of organizational goals.4. Encouraging every individual to participate in the process of planning, thus making them feel responsible for the implementation of the plan.5. Creating a work atmosphere in which employees are encouraged to work and participate enthusiastically.6. Replacing formal lines of authority with personal knowledge and skill.7. Creating an environment of trust so that employees willingly accept change.According to organizational development thinking, organization development provides managers with a vehicle for introducing change systematically by applying a broad selection of management techniques. This, in turn, leads to greater personal, group, and organizational effectiveness.Change agentA change agent in the sense used here is not a technical expert skilled in such functional areas as accounting, production, or finance. The change agent is a behavioral scientist who knows how to get people in an organization involved in solving their own problems. A change agent's main strength is a comprehensive knowledge of human behavior, supported by a number of intervention techniques (to be discussed later). The change agent can be either external or internal to the organization. An internal change agent is usually a staff person who has expertise in the behavioral sciences and in the intervention technology of OD. Beckhard reports several cases in which line people have been trained in OD and have returned to their organizations to engage in successful change assignments.[6]In the natural evolution of change mechanisms in organizations, this would seem to approach the ideal arrangement. Qualified change agents can be found on some university faculties, or they may be private consultants associated with such organizations as the National Training Laboratories Institute for Applied Behavioral Science (Washington, D.C.) University Associates (San Diego,California), the Human Systems Intervention graduate program in the Department of Applied Human Sciences (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada), Navitus (Pvt) Ltd (Pakistan), MaxFoster Global and similar organizations.The change agent may be a staff or line member of the organization who is schooled in OD theory and technique. In such a case, the "contractual relationship" is an in-house agreement that should probably be explicit with respect to all of the conditions involved except the fee.Sponsoring organizationThe initiative for OD programs often comes from an organization that has a problem or anticipates facing a problem. This means that top management or someone authorized by topmanagementis aware that a problem exists and has decided to seek help in solving it. There is a direct analogy here to the practice of psychotherapy: The client orpatientmust actively seek help in finding a solution to his problems. This indicates a willingness on the part of the client organization to accept help and assures the organization that management is actively concerned.

Applied behavioral scienceOne of the outstanding characteristics of OD that distinguishes it from most other improvement programs is that it is based on a "helping relationship." Some believe that the change agent is not a physician to the organization's ills; that s/he does not examine the "patient," make adiagnosis, and write a prescription. Nor does she try to teach organizational members a new inventory of knowledge which they then transfer to the job situation. Using theory and methods drawn from suchbehavioral sciencesasindustrial/organizational psychology,industrial sociology,communication,cultural anthropology,administrativetheory,organizational behavior,economics, andpolitical science, the change agent's main function is to help the organization define and solve its own problems. The basic method used is known as action research. This approach, which is described in detail later, consists of a preliminary diagnosis, collecting data, feedback of the data to the client, data exploration by the client group, action planning based on the data, and taking action.

Q.2: Briefly explain about VISSION AND MISSIONMissionThe World Evangelical Alliance exists to foster Christian unity and to provide a worldwide identity, voice and platform for evangelical Christians. Seeking empowerment by the Holy Spirit, they extend the Kingdom of God by proclamation of the Gospel to all nations and by Christ-centered transformation within society.VisionSeeking Christ-like transformation around the world, the World Evangelical Alliance serves as the dynamic center for equipping and resourcing, the globally trusted Evangelical voice, and the connecting hub for greater strategic impact.Organizational managementis the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the efforts of organization members and resources to achieve stated organizational goals. Decisions, big and small, need to be made everyday, and for an organization to be effective, its managers need to be able to constantly solve problems and make decisions that are of benefit to it.Noleadership styleis right, wrong, or best for all situations. The most effective approach for a particular organization being dependent on: the skill levels and experience of the members of the organization; the type of work involved; theorganizational environment(stable or radically changing, conservative or adventurous). In practice though, a good leader tends to find him or herself switching instinctively between styles according to the people and work they are dealing with.Planningis essential for an organization to achieve its desired objectives, and must be undertaken at each and every step of its development. Its necessary to first plan on a broad organization-wide scale and then to drill down through the different levels of the organization so that everyone within it knows what is required of them.Done thoroughly, this should result in each member of an organization essentially having a to-do list that represents their needed contributions (directly and indirectly) to the organizations objectives. The goal being to make sure everyone has enough responsibility to challenge them, without so much work that theyll feel overwhelmed and become demoralized.Its typical within an organization, though it will depend on its size, to find regional managers, divisional managers (human resources, finance, sales, etc.), and departmental managers (who manage the departments within the divisions). The way regions, divisions, departments and people link together and interact is set out in amanagement structure(sometimes also referred to as an organizational structure).The structure and pattern ofcommunicationswithin an organization has a significant influence on the accuracy of decisions, the speed with which they can be reached, and the satisfaction of the people involved. These are the standard patterns of communication: chain; wheel; star; all-channel.Which pattern is best for a particular organization is dependent on its size, the speed and accuracy at which it must reach decisions, and its room for error in judgment. However, the fact that the majority of organizations operate using the star pattern indicates that, in practice, it returns the best all-round results.Whichever management structure and patterns of communication are implemented need to be regularly reviewed to ensure that an organization and all of its subsystems (processes, departments, teams, employees, etc.) are working effectively to achieve the results desired by the organization. Such reviews (referred to asperformance management) can be carried out on a general basis, or on units of performance, such as quantity, quality, cost or timeliness. Internal and External AssessmentsSome reading assessments are informal, frequent, and tied to curriculum and daily instructional routines in the classroom. For example, assessments of children's daily oral language, listening, and question-answering during group reading may be made through teachers' observation. Other assessments may be more structured, such as spelling tests, weekly quizzes, journal writing, reports, and projects; but they are all under the control of the teacher and embedded in the curriculum. We refer to these assessments as "internal" because they are designed, selected, and used by teachers according to the needs of their children. Internal assessments are used to make decisions about instruction and to report progress to parents. In contrast, "external" assessments are designed, selected, and controlled by another person or group--commercial publishers, district administrators, or state policymakers. Typical examples of external assessments include standardized and commercial reading tests. External assessments occur less frequently than internal assessments, but they usually have greater importance, more authority, and higher stakes attached to them. External assessments have been used as indicators of both the educational achievement of students and the quality of instruction in schools. Although external assessments are used most often in grade 4 and beyond, there has been an increasing tendency to use external reading assessments in K-3 classrooms. Thus, we will briefly discuss the impact of high-stakes tests before we examine the variety of internal assessments used by successful teachers.

Organization Structure & New Product Strategy

A traditional organization achieves efficiency and control of work by division of labor. Employees or departments carry out work in one business area, such as design, marketing or production. New product development relies on bringing together different disciplines to make sure the new product has the required functionality and appeals to a target market. As a result, companies have to implement specific organizational structures that promote effective new product development and strategies. Develop New Products in TeamsYou can develop strategies for new products by placing new product development in the hands of special teams. Continuous new product development requires permanent team structures whose members change as the required disciplines evolve. A particular product may require special design or engineering expertise, and you can transfer the corresponding employees to the team responsible for that product. Later, it may need marketing input, and an employee with marketing knowledge can join the team. As the team gets input from different areas of the business, it can develop strategies that work for the whole company.Develop a New Product as a ProjectCompanies that only develop new products occasionally can set up a project organization to develop a new product and a corresponding strategy. The project manager receives overall goals for the new product development and assembles the staff he needs to carry out the work. The project has a fixed budget, a schedule and representatives from design, engineering, production and marketing to develop an integrated approach. A project structure combines the interdisciplinary expertise required with a higher degree of control than the permanent team structure.Instead of adding specific structures such as teams or project groups to a traditional organization, organize the company around interdisciplinary work groups with flexible boundaries. Such a structure features the multiple reporting paths of a matrix organization, where an employee may report to one manager for organizational or disciplinary issues and another manager for work-related matters. The group developing new product strategies combines the different areas of expertise with links to groups responsible for technical and design work, manufacturing and marketing. A consensus-based process lets your company develop new product strategies with input from all areas of the business.New Product Development in a Traditional OrganizationA traditional hierarchical organization can include product development functions as part of the product organization. Separate staff or departments carry out marketing, product management and product development functions. The marketing function focuses on market development and promotion of the company, product management deals with existing products, and product development designs new products and releases them for production. Each determines the strategies relevant for their functions, with marketing implementing sales strategies, product management focusing on how the consumer uses the product and product development deciding on strategic directions for new products.Competitive Marketing Strategy In marketing, anticipating the moves of your competitors is challenging but essential for maintaining a successful strategy. ThroughCompetitive Marketing Strategy, Wharton professors teach you how to proactively assess competitive action and reaction so you can better plan for and develop highly effective, long-term marketing strategies.Through this program, you will learn how to anticipate the moves of your competitors during the planning stages, analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and react meaningfully. You will develop a strong working knowledge of competitive marketing strategy and an understanding of the effects of offensive and defensive strategies.Creating a Strategic Product PlanMost technology companies have a product management department serving as the voice of the customer and helping to better understand market needs but is product management really being used strategically?Most technology companies have a product management department serving as the voice of the customer and helping to better understand market needs.This function typically generates an extensive roadmap of new products and enhancements, but is product management really being used strategically? For example, what is the product strategy that is driving roadmap priorities? And how is the product strategy linked to the companys overall strategy?Since most technology companies revenues come primarily from their products or services, you would think that the product strategy would be carefully crafted with the close scrutiny of the executive team and that it would be meticulously aligned with an overarching corporate strategy.But this is often not the case. Without the engagement of the leadership team most responsible (and presumably most qualified) for determining strategy and direction, the risk is suboptimal financial performance at best, and complete company failure at worst. Lets take a look at some practical approaches to making product management more strategic by engaging executives in key product strategy decisions and encouraging better corporate strategic planning.The Strategic Product Plan

The essential goal of a product plan should be to ensure that a product is built that delivers some business value to a specific set of customers in order to meet certain financial goals based upon a defined corporate strategy. Successive plans should increase that products effectiveness in doing so. A product plan describes the market opportunity, profiles the target customers, specifies pricing, identifies the financial goals, indicates the key priorities for development and enhancement, and provides a roadmap for delivery for at least the next four quarters.For a new product, a comprehensive MRD (Market Requirements Document) might well serve as the product plan.But each product that continues to be offered to customers should have a product plan updated every year. So, how does product management create a good product plan?Lets assume that the product management department is already managing several products that are currently serving customers. After getting feedback from customers, speaking with the sales teams, obtaining a list of the top technical support issues, surveying competitor positions and features, and receiving new ideas from development, the product management team has generated a list of possibly hundreds of potential product enhancements across the product line as well as some new product ideas. Project prioritization typically takes place next due to limited development resources.Many companies apply some arbitrary prioritization scheme based upon the perceived number of times the feature/product has been requested or how much revenue they think the feature can generate. The product manager (or his development friends) may also make assumptions about value based upon how they think the product should be used. The product management team then creates a roadmap and a release schedule based upon these priorities and voila, the product plan is done, right? No, it certainly is not!The product plan is not complete because the companys strategy has not yet been considered. The executives who are chartered with running the company have not had an influence on the product plan. The plan is merely a reaction to a somewhat random set of market facts and events.So how exactly does the corporate strategy relate to the roadmap? Well, the goal of almost any technology company is to increase revenues.Without a strategy to indicate HOW the company plans to increase revenue, then just about any product plan could arguably help the company achieve its goal, including the plan we just created. But with a strategy that specified how new revenue will be generated, a product plan tailored to supporting that strategy can then be developed.For example, your company could plan to grow revenue by selling its flagship product into new geographic regions. Your company could plan to grow by establishing a new reseller channel. Your company could grow by enhancing its existing products to appeal to a wider base of customers. Your company could plan to grow by developing new products that appeal to the existing customer base. Each of these decisions carries with it significant implications on the product plan.Selling into new geographic regions would require local language support and may have other specific regional requirements. Selling through a reseller channel may require multi-tier administration and branding.Enhancing products to appeal to a wider customer base require profiling that new customer and understanding his/her unique needs and requirements. And developing new products requires new analysis, requirements, design, and development work.Thus, each of these strategies would result in a different prioritization of the projects on the product managers candidate list and a different allocation of resources. The product plan we created previously is reactionary and haphazard, while the product plan that responds to corporate strategy is directed and intentional.So why arent corporate strategies incorporated into product plans? There are several possible reasons, but three of the most prevalent ones I have come across are: 1) no strategy exists, 2) the strategy has not been clearly communicated, or 3) the strategy appears inconsistent with market and customer data. Lets analyze each in the following sections and propose some ways to solve them.If no strategy exists, then one should be created. At one Internet Services company, the executive team employed a process where they reviewed and prioritized the top project requests every six weeks. This approach resulted in constantly shifting priorities since the highest priority projects were always related to the biggest sales opportunities at the time. Less critical product features never made the cut resulting in a product line that became increasingly uncompetitive. Without a driving strategy behind it, your company risks being jacked around by short-term opportunities.Product management is in a good position to persuade executives to develop a high level strategy as part of the product planning process.Here are some key questions that product managers can ask executives to help with product planning that might very well stimulate some strategic discussions. Disadvantages of Organizations with the Matrix Approach

A matrix organization is a cross-functional work team that brings together individuals from different functional departments, product departments or divisions to accomplish a specific goal. As a result, a dual-reporting organization structure is formed where each member of the matrix organization reports to the manager of the cross-functional team as well as the manager of the department that sourced the team member. The matrix organization is an adhocracy design that has four major disadvantages: psychological stress, conflict, inefficiency and cost.Psychological StressThe matrix organization is dynamic in terms of both form and function. The team members, team structure, work roles and work role interfaces lack stability even within a project life cycle. However, the ability of an individual to adapt to change is in part based on the individual's aptitude for establishing human relationships. This conflict between the somewhat rapid fluctuation in the structure and function of the team and the individual's need for stable relationships can lead to team members experiencing psychological stress.ConflictA matrix organization does not exhibit clear lines of authority or responsibility in that the boss-subordinate relationship may not be clear. In addition, a cross-functional team member may receive one direction from a functional manager and a different direction from the cross-functional team manager. As a result, some individuals become disturbed by the ambiguity, and conflict may arise. In turn, high worker dissatisfaction and employee turnover may result.InefficiencyMultiple managers, conflicting policies and procedures, and contradictory loyalties can lead to ineffective management. In addition, infighting may occur between functional managers and cross-functional team managers who are each forced to compete for the time of the individual team members. Matrix organizations benefit from neither structural stability nor routinization of function, which also can lead to inefficiency of both the individual worker and business processes. In addition, the cross-functional manager may lack the authority to make critical decisions -- which greatly impedes project progress.CostWorkers are frequently chosen to participate on cross-functional teams because they possess a broad and diverse skill set. However, in general, the wages earned by an individual increase in relation to the skills he possesses. In addition, an individual usually performs functions in support of both the matrix organization and the functional organization, which can increase overtime costs for the organization. Also, more managers may be hired for the matrix organization, which also increases personnel costs. Finally, the lack of structural stability or routine functions leads to operational inefficiency and increased costs.Any business in today's fast-moving environment that is looking for the pace of change to slow is likely to be sorely disappointed. In fact, businesses should embrace change. Change is important for any organization because, without change, businesses would likely lose their competitive edge and fail to meet the needs of what most hope to be a growing base of loyal customers.TechnologyWithout change, business leaders still would be dictating correspondence to secretaries, editing their words and sending them back to the drawing board, wasting time for all involved. Change that results from the adoption of new technology is common in most organizations and while it can be disruptive at first, ultimately the change tends to increase productivity and serviceTechnology also has affected how we communicate. No longer do business people dial a rotary phone, get a busy signal, and try again and again and again until they get through. No longer do business people have to laboriously contact people, in person, to find out about other people who might be useful resources - they can search for experts online through search engines as well as through social media sites. Today's burgeoning communication technology represents changes that allow organizations to learn more, more quickly, than ever before.Customer NeedsCustomers who were satisfied with conventional ovens many years ago are sometimes impatient with the microwave today. As the world evolves, customer needs change and grow, creating new demand for new types of products and services -- and opening up new areas of opportunity for companies to meet those needs.The EconomyThe economy can impact organizations in both positive and negative ways and both can be stressful. A strong economy and increasing demand for products and services will mean that companies must consider expansion that might involve the addition of staff and new facilities. These changes offer opportunities for staff, but also represent new challenges. A weak economy can create even more problems as companies find themselves needing to make difficult decisions that can impact employees' salaries and benefits and even threaten their jobs. The ability to manage both ends of the spectrum are critical for organizations that want to maintain a strong brand and strong relationships with customers as well as employees.Growth OpportunitiesChange is important in organizations to allow employees to learn new skills, explore new opportunities and exercise their creativity in ways that ultimately benefit the organization through new ideas and increased commitment. Preparing employees to deal with these changes involves an analysis of the tools and training required to help them learn new skills. Training can be provided through traditional classroom settings or, increasingly, through online learning opportunities. Importantly, organizations need to do a good job of evaluating employees' capabilities and then taking steps to fill the gaps between current skills and the skills required to respond to growth.Challenging the Status QuoSimply asking the question "Why?" can lead to new ideas and new innovations that can directly impact the bottom line. Organizations benefit from change that results in new ways of looking at customer needs, new ways of delivering customer service, new ways of strengthening customer interactions and new products that might attract new markets. New employees joining an organization are especially valuable because they can often point to areas of opportunity for improvement that those who have been long involved in the company might have overlooked. But even existing employees should be encouraged to question why things are done a certain way and look for new ways to get work done faster, better and with higher levels of quality and service.THE END